'Just pumped' Roper helps Harper repeat as national champ

Jamal Roper wanted to help the Harper College men's track and field team win another NJCAA Division III national title.

But no one in the Harper program -- from Roper to head coach Renee Zellner -- figured how much he would factor into a repeat championship.

Roper didn't even come out for the team last year. He wasn't regarded as a major threat coming into last weekend's national meet.

But the Hoffman Estates High School product came out of New York with his own national title in the 100 meters and a third-place finish in the 200.

"He ended up having the meet of his life," Zellner said.

"I was just pumped," Roper said of crossing the finish line ahead of everyone in the 100. "I'm an athlete and a competitor. Whatever I do, I want to win at it."

Finding guys like Roper is what has allowed Zellner to reap the benefits of years of hard work with the first two team titles in program history.

Roper was known best for basketball at Hoffman. He was a sophomore starter on its 2004 Elite Eight team and a Daily Herald All-Area guard as a senior.

He did go out for track his last two years at Hoffman and qualified for state in the 200 and 800 relay as a senior. But basketball was Roper's sport of choice when he came to Harper.

He battled a high ankle sprain for most of this season. But it didn't nag him enough mentally to keep him from taking another run at track.

"That was one of the reasons I went out for track, to see what I could do," Roper said. "When a couple of guys asked me in the beginning of the year if I was coming out, they showed me their (championship) rings and it pushed me and motivated me to come out."

Roper's injuries and the basketball season put him behind a bit in training. But Zellner said "each meet he got a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better."

Which summed up Roper's run to a national title through the preliminaries and semifinals in the 100. Using the advice of sprint coach Nathaniel Williams to lift his knees more made the difference.

"I ate up more ground and dropped my time down a lot," Roper said of running his best time of the year in the preliminaries. "I got confident that lifting my knees really works.

"I took it to the finals, got a good start …"

And the rest was history for Roper and Harper.

Roper, who is going to Illinois-Chicago to study architecture and wants to give track and basketball a shot, was joined in the winners circle by former Barrington standout Ryan Asta in the discus and sophomore Steve Damhauser of Hoffman in the pole vault.

Darius Voss (Fremd) in the triple jump and Matt Royer in the shot put also stepped up with championship efforts.

But this was truly a team effort as 21 of the 22 competitors contributed points.

One of Zellner's favorite moments came in the 1,600 relay when Calvin Gant passed five runners in the final 220 meters of his anchor leg of a third-place finish.

And three will be a magic number next spring when Harper looks to extend its title run. This year proved the first title was no fluke.

"When it happens once you go, 'That's great,'" Zellner said. "It was an honor and the biggest thrill ever.

"Then you start to think … are you really there. To have the second time is confirmation in the fact you have a good, solid program and good coaches and effort by all the athletes."

Jamal Roper exhibited all those aspects last weekend.

Giving Harper a vault: One of the point-scoring contributors to the men's title was Carlos Carbajal with a fourth-place finish in the pole vault. Carbajal was inadvertently omitted from Sunday's story.